Apart from fly ash, energy by-products also involve cinder and energy gypsum. These materials are generated during production of energy from fossil fuels. Fly ash is separated mechanically from smoke gases. Cinder is molten ash that is cooled and granulated. Energy gypsum is the industrial name for di-hydrate of calcium sulphate that is produced by precipitation of sulphur oxides from combustion products using limestone.
Coal-combustion products were recently considered in the Czech Republic to be waste and were utilised as backfill into worked-out mines. For that reason, they were a big environmental burden. Later on, we imported a technology from the former Federal Republic of Germany for utilisation of energy by-products in the building industry. Nevertheless, the work with those products faced several problems. The production of this specific commodity was disturbed by planned and unscheduled temporary shutdowns of power stations or heating plants. Moreover, chemical composition of fly ash varied according to its manufacturer. Supplies of fly ash were also affected by the fact that power stations combusted the biggest quantities of coal in the winter period with the weakest building activity generally. Those limitations aggravated permanent business with energy by-products in quantities corresponding to capacities of domestic power stations and heating plants.
„We have gradually created a system providing more stable consumptions of fly ash without regard to more principal seasonal fluctuations both in production at power stations and in the building industry consumption. Our solution enables producers of energy by-products to considerably reduce costs on dumping those materials. Such conditions thus help increase the volumes of business with this commodity." The company Silo Transport has storage capacities at its own disposal, to be able to deliver fly ash to its clients even in summer when power stations combust less coal, however, in the period with stronger building activity.
The volumes of business with energy by-products allow us to guarantee stable prices for our clients, to be able to rely upon their strategic plans. In fact, we do not take fly ash from only thermal power stations but also from smaller producers, involving, for example, regional heating plants. We would welcome each owner of a bigger “smoking chimney” to become our supplier.
